“When I was in eighth grade, it made the kind of sense I needed. The notion of a violent stranger passing through town was almost comforting, in an odd way, because it meant the danger was gone. And that the danger wasn’t us—my town, my neighbors, the people I’d known for most of my life.”

The best explanation the police have for Mr. Larkin’s murder is that a random drifter must have killed him before moving on to a different town. Brynn, as well as others in town, found this explanation comforting because it means nobody they knew did anything wrong. When Brynn starts looking into the truth, several people warn her about the dangers of learning something painful. Brynn understands that if it wasn’t a drifter who killed Mr. Larkin, it was likely someone she knew, yet she investigates it anyway because the dangers of not knowing seem to outweigh the dangers of knowing. Still, later, whenever the suspect seems to be someone she really doesn’t want it to be (such as her Uncle Nick or Tripp’s mother), she tries to steer her thoughts toward someone else such as Charlotte or Shane, who she knows but doesn’t really care about.

“After Charlotte, Shane, and Tripp found Mr. Larkin, there was something strangely glamorous about the three of them—as though they’d aged a decade in the woods that day, and knew things the rest of us couldn’t possibly understand. Tripp, who hadn’t been at all friendly with Shane and Charlotte before, was absorbed into their group as though he’d always been there.”

This quote illustrates how trauma “ages” children in certain ways, and explains the newfound relationship among the three kids who found Mr. Larkin. However, there is also dramatic irony at play because the kids literally know things others (including Brynn) don’t know. This is because they are lying about the murder and the evidence.